Earlier today, Coupa announced it was partnering with Alibaba.com, a company that was once really just a directory service for global suppliers. It has since become as diverse in its holdings (if not more so) than eBay. The purpose of the partnership seems straightforward, but Spend Matters has found that Alibaba overplays its own usefulness in the Fortune 500 as it markets to Chinese suppliers. Alibaba’s supplier listings, catalogs, and directories might be more useful for smaller buying organizations. Potential users of integrated search services connected with source-to-pay applications would do well to consider a number of factors to gauge the actual usefulness of the relationships. Read on for these recommendations, as well as our detailed analysis of the deal.